Getting personal: Bywater Properties interview

Bywater Properties’ Theo Michell and Patrick O’Gorman explain how their connections with Belfast were key to their decision to embark on a major mixed-use scheme in the city.

Theo Michell and Patrick O’Gorman are at pains to point out they are not your average property investors. “We are not a fund,” insists Michell. “We are not placing money for other people. We both personally have a huge amount of our net worth invested in this business.”

The business in question is Bywater Properties and the reason the pair are so keen to highlight their own exposure is because it helps explain why Bywater is proposing to invest £60m to reinvigorate a previously unloved area of Belfast. O’Gorman explains that the city aligns perfectly with Bywater’s ethos of being “unapologetically picky” about where it invests, since they personally stand to lose from any failure.

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